Printing

When I visited the Alec Soth exhibition Gathered Leaves I noticed that some of his work was printed chromogenic and some archival. At this point in my studies I could not tell the difference by looking closely at them.

A Chromogenic (C-Print) Print-Developed in the 1930s as reversal type film then used in the 1940s as light sensitive paper. This is a process where the dyes are activated by a chemical reaction during development. Multiple layers of gelatin containing silver halides combine with the dyes Cyan/Magenta & Yellow within the layers forming a ‘Sub-Tri-Chromatic’ Colour system. Used for film, transparency or digital. This was the most common printing practice until Archival Pigment Prints.

Archival Pigment Printing is a refined printing system that renders particles of pigment resiliant to environmental factors, that fade or erode images,thus preserving the quality. Used with digital images, once the photo is stored, can be reproduced again and again without loss of quality and produced in any size or resolution again retaining the exact look of the original piece.